07/21/2011

Tramping with Sam

I'm really enjoying spending time in Oxford with my "frolleagues," Sam, Phil, and Sabrina (and 15-year-old Eli). Sam and I both like to hike so Sunday morning we set off early to walk north out of the city of Oxford. Our destination was John Buchan's gravesite in Elsfield, and then we planned to circle back around to the Victoria Arms, a pub on the Cherwell about a fifteen-minute walk from where we are living in the north Oxford neighborhood of Summertown.

After about thirty minutes on bike paths through the suburbs, we hit wheat fields.

It's been rainy the last few days so the track through the fields was pretty muddy. At one point I looked at Sam's pants and thought, "Wow, he is muddy up to the knees. I wonder how he got so much muddier than I did?" Then I looked at my own pants, and they were worse.

Sam had an Ordnance Survey map of the region. Although I've used topo maps hiking in North America, this was my first encounter with the legendary Ordnance, started in the eighteenth century as an Enlightentment project of total knowledge. The goal: to map every square inch of the island of Britain. Often Sam and I would pause to look for the next path and spy a barely-discernible tamping-down of the grass. Could that be it? And THERE IT WOULD BE on the Ordnance Survey map. Not only every cowpath, but every barn, outbuilding, and house was on that map. My parents' ranch in Alberta is criss-crossed with tracks much more substantial than some of those we followed, but I know they are not on any map. Sam kept the invaluable document tucked under his arm:

In this way, we proceeded past the estate of Water Eaton,

under occasional showers, against which I had provided myself with what turned out to be an utterly useless poncho,

through the village of Wood Eaton, and to the Church of St. Thomas of Canterbury in Elsfield.

Sam is a fan of John Buchan, the author of The Thirty-Nine Steps. Sam had heard that he was buried with his chauffeur, but we could find no mention of this. Looking around at the graves, though, I noticed that next to Buchan's striking circular headstone

was one commemorating Amos Combs with the statement, "for twenty years the friend of Lord Tweedsmuir." I pointed it out to Sam, and he said, "You found the chauffeur?" "But what about Lord Tweedsmuir?" I asked. "Was it a threesome?" No, as it turned out Lord Tweedsmuir and John Buchan are one and the same. Tweedsmuir is a familiar name to me because he was the Governor General of Canada in the early 20th century. There's a private school in Calgary named after him and that's where all my druggie friends got sent when they got into trouble at the public high school. So not only was my gaydar affirmed, I also got some unexpected CanCon.

On our way back into Oxford, we met some very handsome locals:

and later saw evidence of the activity of their wives:

Thinking of eggs made us hungry, and by the time we reached our destination, we had been out five hours. Needless to say, the reward of a Sunday roast at the pub was most welcome.

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You look so English in your poncho, Lisa -- but it seems to be made of plastic grocery bags. The Ordnance Survey is like that map in Borges that is co-extensive with the territory that it is representing. At least I think it's Borges. It all looks quite lovely.